If the robotics world had a celebrity it would be Spot Mini of Boston Dynamics. Last month at the Robotics Summit in Boston the mechanical dog strutted onto the floor of the Westin Hotel trailed by hundreds of flickering iPhones. Marc Raibert first unveiled his metal menaagerie almost a decade ago with a video of Big Dog. Today, Mini is the fulfillment of his mission in a sleeker, smarter, and environmentally friendlier robo-canine package than its gas-burning ancestor. Since the early 1990s, machines have relied on rechargeable lithium ion batteries for power.

Rob Bollard, CIO at IP Australia, the government's intellectual property department, is proud to say that he heads up Australia's first fully digital service delivery agency. In just the space of four years, IP Australia has gone from receiving just 12% of its IP applications online – the rest coming through on paper – to now receiving 99.6% through digital channels. Not only his, but Bollard is overseeing the decommissioning of old systems, a move to the cloud, has implemented agile working, created a DevOps environment that focuses on continuous delivery, ensures systems are designed with the user in mind, and is even deploying AI technologies to improve experiences for employees and citizens. I got the chance to sit down with Bollard at Pega's annual user event in Las Vegas this week, as IP Australia has implemented the Pega platform as its case management system. Our vision is really to become a world-class IP office and to try to support the prosperity of Australians in the system.

In a new 8,000-word set of ethicals principles and guidelines, Google outlined how it plans to manage--and in some cases limit--the application of artificial intelligence, a powerful and emerging set of technologies that Google views as key to its growth. Google, the primary business unit of Alphabet Inc., GOOGL -1.09% has recently come under criticism from its own employees for supplying image-recognition technology to the U.S. Department of Defense, in a partnership called Project Maven. Google told employees earlier this month it wouldn't seek to renew its contract for Project Maven, a person familiar with the matter said at the time, and that decision in turn was blasted by some who said the company shouldn't be conflicted about supporting national security. Google's artificial intelligence also recently generated public alarm after the company demonstrated a robotic voice that can trick humans into thinking it is real. Google is having to expand its definition of ethics as its technology seeps more and more into the institutions of public life, from scientific research to military intelligence.

Piali De is a physicist who worked on creating AI systems for the U.S. defense departments, including programs after 9/11. She found the work meaningful, but in 2010, her father-in-law became ill and needed a heart valve replacement. After the procedure, he picked up an infection and his health went downhill. "In front of our eyes, he became reduced to a man who was very capable of taking care of himself to one who couldn't," De said in a phone interview. She and her husband Hugh Stoddart, who is also a physicist, came to a realization: "The [healthcare] system gets exponentially complicated if you have anything other than pristine health."

The government has allocated £300m in new funding to invest in AI research in a bid to make the UK a global leader in the technology. According to a press release, more than 50 businesses and organisations have contributed to the development of a £1bn deal, which was announced by business secretary Greg Clark and digital secretary Matt Hancock. The new funding builds on the commitment made in the government's modern Industrial Strategy and its AI Grand Challenge. It aims to help the UK seize the £232bn opportunity artificial intelligence offers the UK economy by 2030. Today's announcement comes after'record levels' of investment into the UK tech sector last year, and includes new deals such as: "The UK must be at the forefront of emerging technologies, pushing boundaries and harnessing innovation to change people's lives for the better. "Artificial Intelligence is at the centre of our plans to make the UK the best place in the world to start and grow a digital business.

Artificial intelligence refers to the ability of computers systems to perform tasks that normally require human intellect and judgment. Also called machine learning, these systems take in data that is structured or unstructured producing algorithms, finding patterns, and continually learning and refining its capacity over time to make decisions, guide behavior, offer solutions, or act. AI is now moving rapidly into "deep learning" which looks not just at the face value of data but draws meaning and representations from initial and cumulative data accelerating its learning and capacity as it grows. IBM's Watson is probably the most commonly know system exercising deep learning. Although the term was first coined in the mid 1950s, we are beginning to see their use in everyday life with self-driving cars, airplane autopilot systems, automatically controlling traffic lights based on flow and density, mobile check deposits deciphering handwriting, detecting human emotion to target advertising, and analyzing electronic trails to learn and exploit human behavior patterns.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. A company that makes stun guns and body cameras is teaming up with a company that makes drones to sell drones to police departments, and that might not even be the most worrisome part. The line of drones from Axon and DJI is called the Axon Air, and the devices will be linked to Axon's cloud-based database for law enforcement, Evidence.com, And it could open a vast new frontier for police surveillance. By working with a company that is already familiar with contracting with police departments, the Chinese-owned DJI--the world's biggest consumer drone manufacturer--could widen up a new, growing customer base: cops. Axon Air, which was announced Tuesday by Axon, is marketed as a way to help law enforcement with search-and-rescue operations, crowd monitoring, traffic-accident reconstruction, and evidence collection.

Google has pledged to never work on artificial intelligence weapons projects, laying down the principle after a collaboration with the US military fomented an employee revolt. The technology giant recently announced it would discontinue work with the Department of Defense on Project Maven, an artificial intelligence project that analyses imagery and could be used to enhance the efficiency of drone strikes. Thousands of employees had signed onto a letter warning that Google's participation contravened the company's ethical tenets. Stating that "Google should not be in the business of war", the letter warned that the company's involvement would compromise its image and drive away potential employees. Google'ditches contract with US military' after employee revolt Google quietly removes'don't be evil' preface from code of conduct Hundreds of AI experts call on Google to stop weaponizing technology Google'ditches contract with US military' after employee revolt Google quietly removes'don't be evil' preface from code of conduct A blog post by CEO Sundar Pichai addressed the underlying debate, establishing guidelines for future artificial intelligence (AI) projects that pledged to ensure the work benefits society and eschew "technologies that cause or are likely to cause overall harm".

The Senate is currently considering a bill that would give the Department of Homeland Security more power to research, surveil, seize and destroy drones flying in the US, Gizmodo reports. Yesterday during a hearing, DHS officials expressed support for the bipartisan legislation, saying current laws prevent the agency from effectively mitigating the potential threats presented by drones. DHS Deputy General Counsel Hayley Chang said yesterday that laws like the Wiretap Act, the Pen Trap Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Aircraft Sabotage Act limit what measures the agency can take when it comes to drones that pose a risk to US security and in its written introduction, DHS said, "Legal uncertainty also impedes the department's ability to research, develop and test [counter-unmanned aircraft system (CUAS)] technologies for eventual CUAS operations by our authorized users. Under current legal constraints, only a very small number of technologies can be employed to detect and track UAS and none can be employed to disable/mitigate UAS in our homeland." As for why it needs more leeway when it comes to drones, DHS pointed to activity taking place in other countries that could threaten US security.

The New York Times recently revealed that Facebook entered into agreements with at least 60 mobile device companies, giving them access to Facebook user data so that the companies could recreate Facebook-like features. Among those companies are four Chinese firms -- Huawei, Lenovo, Oppo and TCL -- which has spurred some concern among US lawmakers. Today, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) sent letters to both Alphabet and Twitter, inquiring as to whether they entered into similar data-sharing agreements with any mobile device companies based in China. "Since at least October 2012, when the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released its widely-publicized report, the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party and equipment makers like Huawei and ZTE has been an area of national security concern," wrote Warner. He then goes on to ask both companies if they've had agreements in place similar to Facebook's and if so, whether any Chinese firms like Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo or Xiaomi were included.